


yellow topaz

by mornen



Series: I see a darkness in you [9]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Brothers, Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Magic, Mental Anguish, Mental Instability, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychosis, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25790311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mornen/pseuds/mornen
Summary: Elladan keeps seeing things*Elladan reaches out and touches Maedhros. He feels solid. His hair is soft. His scars are raised and real beneath Elladan’s hand. Maedhros stares at him with deep grey eyes, touched with green.‘I miss you,’ he whispers.
Series: I see a darkness in you [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2025992
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	yellow topaz

Elladan gathers Elrohir in his arms. He rests his hand over his neck and feels his heartbeat there. 

‘I love you,’ he whispers. ‘I love you more than earth and stars and moon and sun, more than any reaching galaxy, more than the blood inside of me, more than life, more than peace, more than hope, more than joy.’ 

He’s said it before, out loud, in his mind, but now he has to say it again. Because he feels like he’s becoming unreal, like he might be slipping, and he doesn’t want Elrohir to forget if he disappears. He kisses him gently. There are a million stars in his eyes. He knows each one by heart. 

He feels like he could be falling. His body is a feather, feathers. It’s an explosion of grey and white down. It’s floating through a canyon of golden topaz, lit from the inside with a flickering light like a candle’s flame. He can’t see the bottom. He can only see darkness below him and darkness above him, but the darkness above him is filled with stars. 

Elrohir holds his hand. He holds it tightly and places it against his lips. He is grounding, but Elladan is still falling. The wind is hot outside their tent. 

They are alone. Completely alone. Alone but his head is spinning with memories that are not his. He wishes Arwen were there to tell him that he isn’t falling. He wishes that his mother were there to tell him that these are not his memories. He wishes that his father were there to tell him that he does not have to hold their weight alone. But they are alone. 

‘Ro,’ he whispers. ‘Ro, I’m falling.’ 

Elrohir draws Elladan onto his chest. He keeps him on top of him as if the ground itself were open and his body was the only thing solid. 

‘No,’ he says. ‘You can’t fall. I’m holding you.’ 

And he is holding him, but now they’re both falling together, falling past the golden cliffs that shine from inside, lighting each flaw in the rock, the only light beside the stars. They are falling and tangled and their bodies are feathers and their hair is ribbons that trail behind them and catch on the crags of the topaz cliffs but never tear. 

‘I want to go home,’ Elladan says. 

‘All right. We can go home.’ 

Elladan hides his face against Elrohir’s neck. He is still falling. They are falling together. Falling and the world is dissolving into mist, and he can’t stop it. Elrohir might be able to. Elrohir is holding him tightly, and that’s something. It’s enough to keep him from dissolving with the world. The topaz is golden but it grows dim, turns grey. The hardness of the rock grows soft. He cannot stop falling.

He keeps seeing Maedhros. Tall Maedhros with a copper blanket wrapped around him. It is stitched with stars and singed on the edges. Maedhros cries, and Elladan cannot reach him. He cannot comfort him. He is dead, but he is lying beside them, and his hair falls in copper waves over their arms.

‘I see him too,’ Elrohir whispers. ‘But he isn’t here, my love.’ 

Elladan reaches out and touches Maedhros. He feels solid. His hair is soft. His scars are raised and real beneath Elladan’s hand. Maedhros stares at him with deep grey eyes, touched with green. 

‘I miss you,’ he whispers. 

Elladan cries. 

‘It’s not real,’ Elrohir says. He holds Elladan fast. ‘It’s not real.’ 

‘Please,’ Elladan says. ‘He’s crying.’ 

‘I know, but it’s not real.’ 

‘It was.’ 

It was real. This is a memory. Elrond’s memory (his memory.) Elrond really lay three inches from Maedhros while he cried. Did he say that? Did he really say that? 

‘I miss you,’ Maedhros says again. ‘Please.’ 

In what world would Maedhros say that to Elrond? Maybe it’s not a memory, maybe it’s a nightmare. Elladan is awake, but he can’t stop dreaming it. It isn’t real, but he can still feel Maedhros beneath his shaking hand. 

Elrohir rolls Elladan beneath him, trapping his hands between them. He covers Elladan’s face with his hair.

‘Sleep. Please sleep. I’ll keep you. You won’t fall.’ 

Maedhros disappears. Elladan is flesh and blood again, not just feathers. And he isn’t falling, but he is still slipping. He’s standing on the edge of the cliff looking down into the canyon, and the yellow topaz is too sheer to climb, but there is nowhere to go. He thinks maybe there’s a river below him, but it’s too far down to hear or to see. But still he can imagine it, lying dark at the base of the golden cliffs, flowing smooth beneath their light, too far down to see the stars.

A copper hand lies at his feet. It’s heavy, but the wind is strong, and the wind takes it. It falls into the canyon. It falls, and the light inside the cliffs illuminates it, glinting. 

‘Don’t think about it,’ Elrohir says softly. ‘Don’t think about it, my dear.’ 

Elladan thinks about mint. He thinks of the frost beneath his feet as he crept out into the garden late at night beneath the moon to gather mint for tea. How the blades were dark but ensnared in silver and his footsteps were sharp with the sound of the frost breaking. 

How the leaves of the pumpkins were wide and how the vines were long and how the pumpkins glowed round and white like little moons left behind on the earth, and he slipped past them in the shadows of the bitter-berry trees. 

How the fragrance of the mint guided him to the patch that threatened always to grow beyond its bounds and how he would bend to gather the leaves and the crush of his fingers on their stems scent up the fragrance again in the clear air of mid-October. 

How he would return to the house with the leaves in his hand and the cold of the air fresh on his ears and give the mint to his mother to seep in the water to drink with honey while the stars hung in the air dimmed by the moon. 

He thinks of her face. Her hair like frost. Her eyes blue, her eyes blue, her eyes blue. She stands beside him, but when he reaches his hand out, she disappears. He cannot touch her. 

‘I love you,’ he whispers against Elrohir’s neck. ‘I love you.’ Because the night is too hot, and he is too open, and all he can think of is Elrohir slipping away farther than he can reach. 

‘I want to go home,’ he says. ‘I want to go home.’ 

Elrohir holds him. 

‘I know.’


End file.
